Stripes
by orange crush
Summary: Maybe if you loved somebody enough; even if nothing else in your life had gone quite right; the world just let you be." (RS, not happy.)


It was ridiculous, that he be expected to deal with the mess, but there you have it. Remus Lupin, cleanup crew. Disgusting. He stepped over a particularly blackened square of sidewalk. The spell that had done this must have been savage, terrifying in its intensity.

_Did he hate us so much _? he managed to think, before his brain shut off for the hundredth time that day.

The task was natural, considering he had not been on the team sent to deal with Si- sent to deal with the Potters' kil- sent to deal with _events_. So here he was, on second shift, obliviating memories of witnesses and scourgifying the pavement and _God Almighty is that what I think it is ?_

It was a finger. A distinctly round, pinkish finger, with a few dirty gold hairs sticking out of the unbloodied end. It was a finger that had clumsily traced many a line of charms homework at the desk beside his own. A finger that often ruined a perfectly good potion. Remus felt like weeping for the first time that evening. He nearly picked it up with a corner of his coat, before a wave of nausea stopped him short. So there he stood, staring at the lump, for several minutes; until a frighteningly young Auror in ill-fitting robes approached him.

"You've, er- found the remains, then, sir." he coughed, and flipped open the lid of a smallish mahogany box. The finger did a grotesque little flip _much like my stomach _and floated into the container, which snapped smartly shut. "We'll, ah, be sending that to his family."

"Right." he nodded, and the Auror returned the gesture, stepping away. "Mind the entrails." he said, automatically, and they vanished under his wand's stern glow. Much later, they asked if Remus would be willing to sift through The Godric's Hollow Site with the remaining members of the team. He threw up on Dumbledore's shoe; and the elderly wizard was kind enough to send him home.

The flat was empty when he returned, as it must be. "Lumos." his tired echo flared the lamps to life, bringing into sharper focus the threadbare couch, the books; the mug of tea abandoned that morning, colder than the outdoors. Two pairs of boots on the mat. He kicked at them savagely, and they scattered like buckshot. He kicked at the books too, particularly the one with dog-eared pages on the opposite side of the couch, the one marred with curry-fingerprints, battered the way Remus would never have battered a book. He went on kicking his way through the coffee table, into the kitchen, and left dents in the cabinets, overturned the table, left the refrigerator door ("_Marvelous thing, this; don't you think so Moony_ ?") flapping open like a drunkard's coat. He kicked into the bedroom, and destroyed most of what was in there, spare as it was; shattering the half-drunk glass of water against the wall, ripping a curtain ("_Stripes, the most manly of all patterns, don't you think so Moony ?_") with his teeth.

Remus laid on the floor when he was finished, and wished to God that objects held no memories. He would move tomorrow. He'd put _his_ things into crates and ship them off into the ocean. He'd burn everything. He would not think his name.

He would not sleep, either.

__

__

_"Now you've done it."_

Sirius left off tugging his shirt and sat down beside him on the bench. "That's my homework, rotter." Remus indicated where the quill pen had trailed off the paper messily, marking the exact time and date when Hurricane Sirius entered the room. "I'll have to copy it all over, and it's due tomorrow." The dark-haired boy gave him a thoughtful glance, and Remus could have sworn he was actually feeling bad about it; right up until he was tackled backwards off the bench.

"You think about tomorrow too much." he murmured into Remus' mouth; which was not true. He found it impossible at that moment to think about anything at all. He kissed back, fiercely, and then laid his head on the rug, listening to Sirius' smug humming. Eventually it would be legal for the Rolling Stones to come and kill him, the way he gleefully butchered everything they wrote.

"It's not always going to be like this."

"Like what ?"

"Like this." he waved an airy hand at the common room's cozy fireplace, the quidditch gear drying out, the rich tapestries, the two laziest boys at Hog warts.

"I love you." Sirius said brightly, sitting up on his elbows. As if that were the answer. There was a long pause, and Remus tried to recall his train of thought; and settled for putting his face in the other boy's hair and inhaling deeply. Maybe it was supposed to be this way. Maybe life was supposed to feel like this; to smell like Sirius, rain and pie and sweat and soap and dirt. What does a sixteen year old know about eternity anyway, except what he's read in books ? Maybe if you loved somebody enough; even if nothing else in your life had gone quite right; the world just let you be.

Sirius was still watching him expectantly, so he drifted back, out of his own head; and smiled.

"I could be wrong, you know." he said.


End file.
